smatter

verb

1. (also, figuratively, obsolete, transitive)To make (someone or something) dirty; to bespatter, to soil.

   “To ſay the Ieſuites are all ſmattred vvith Atheiſme, I vvill not: and to ſay, that any of them all are abſolutely ſcotfree from it, I cannot: it is ſo repugnant from their ovvne principles.”

   “[I]f euer you ſee father Parſons booke of intended Reformation, you vvill finde roome ynough to put in more odious ſtuffe then I haue handled, or am vvilling to ſmatter my pen vvithall.”

2. (US, broadly, transitive)To hit (someone or something) with a liquid; to splash, to spatter.
3. (figuratively, transitive)To approach or study (something, such as a subject) superficially; to dabble in.

   “I have smattered law, smattered letters, smattered geography, smattered mathematics; I have even a working knowledge of judicial astrology; and here I stand, all London roaring by at the street's end, as impotent as any baby.”

4. (figuratively, transitive)To speak (a language or words) with only a superficial knowledge of it.

   “The Barber ſmatters latin, I remember.”

   “All this, vvithout a Gloſs or Comment, / He vvould unriddle in a moment / In proper terms, ſuch as men ſmatter / VVhen they throvv out and miſs the matter.”

   “Smatter'ſt thou Greek ſtill? This tongue does ill grace / An old Trot, […]”

   “He smattered words in not a few foreign languages.”

   “The languages of Polynesia are easy to smatter, though hard to speak with elegance.”

5. (US, intransitive)To hit with a liquid; to splash, to spatter.
6. (figuratively, intransitive)To have a slight, superficial knowledge of something; to dabble.

   “He ſmattereth a lytell of the lawe: […]”

7. (figuratively, intransitive, obsolete)To talk ignorantly or superficially; to babble, to chatter.

   “How Cownterfet Cowntenaunce of the new get / With Crafty Conueyauance dothe smater and flater, / And Cloked Collucyoun is brought in to clater / With Courtely Abusyoun; […]”

   “For I abhore to smatter / Of one so deuyllysshe a matter.”

   “What ſtandyſt thou there⸝ all the day ſmatterynge”

   “And vvhy my lady vviſedome? hold your tung, / Good prudence ſmatter vvith your goſſips, goe.”

   “For Poets, Lavv makes no Proviſion: / The VVealthy have you in deriſion. / Of State-Affairs you cannot ſmatter, / Are avvkvvard vvhen you try to flatter.”

noun

1. Synonym of smattering.

   “[A]ll other Sciences, they vvere in a manner extinguiſh'd during the Courſe of this Empire, excepting only a Smatter of Judicial Aſtrology, by vvhich, under the Name of Chaldeans, ſome of that Race long amazed ignorant and credulous People.”

2. Synonym of smattering.

   “a smatter of applause”

   “[H]e can pray, and tell long Scrifts of Greek, / And broken Smatters of the Hebrevv ſpeak; / And in the Latin he is nicely read; / Can ſcrape and jouk; then is not he vvell bred?”